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Description: | A collection of papers relating to his service as a pilot in No 16 Squadron Royal Flying Corps (RFC), including a spell as a prisoner of war of the Germans, his escape, and later service as an instructor with the Royal Air Force (RAF), comprising: a ms diary (365pp, partly written after the events) describing his basic training and first flights (1914 - May 1915), and further training at Brooklands, posting to France (July 1915), reconnaissance missions, first encounters with enemy planes (October 1915) and being shot down and made a prisoner of war (November 1915); four Flying Log Books covering the period May - November 1915, and then July 1916 - April 1921; a memoir (78pp) entitled 'An Erratic Odyssey', a wittily written account of his training, combat service, escape from the prison camp and his subsequent career as an instructor; a photocopy of a ms diary (37pp) kept by a fellow prisoner, Champion, giving details of the daily life in the camp but also information about the planning of the escape; a ts account (46pp) of Ward's capture by the Germans and his subsequent escape from a Prisoner of War train and his return to England; his commission and RFC Flying Certificates (June 1915 - November 1918); a letter from the British Consulate in Zurich telling him that two fellow escaping officers had been recaptured (May 1916); a letter from the Government Committee on the Treatment by the Enemy of British Prisoners of War enclosing a copy of Ward's report on his life in the POW camp and his subsequent escape (10pp, June 1916); a letter from Ward giving details of a code to by used by POWs (n.d.), a letter and a card to Ward from H W Medlicott and J S Poole using the same code to ask for escape equipment (July - September 1916); Certificate in German completed by the German Hospital after his capture (December 1915); three booklets entitled ' General Methods of Teaching Soviet Pilots' (11pp, n.d.), 'Flying Instructions' (64pp, n.d.), 'A Few Hints for the Flying Officer' (16pp, n.d.), and 'Turning Without Tears (2pp, written by Ward in 1917); two Coroners Certificates regarding pupils killed while under Ward's instruction (July and September 1916); five postcards and a letter from Russian ex-pupils of Ward (1916 - 1917); a telegram calling him back to his station (April 1917); a letter from F Binney who had been invalided to Switzerland from a German POW camp (2pp, December 1917); Ward's Certificate of Identity (May 1918); Army Form Z3 disharging him from the RAF (January 1919); a letter from the War Office clearing Ward of any responsibility for his capture (2pp, January 1920); five letters from the German mechanic who dismantled Ward's aircraft, with photographs (1923); portrait photographs of Ward; reconnaissance photographs taken by Ward (1915); photographs of the damage to his plane; photographs of Ward and fellow officers in planes and in the German hospitals and POW camps; an album of photographs showing crashed aircraft and Russian officer flying trainees; and 40 photographs of the 10th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment on the Western Front (1915).
Cataloguer SJO | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Subjects: | 16 Squadron Royal Air Force Royal Flying Corps | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Ward, Herbert | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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